So many lines are going through my head. Like ...

It's only make believe ...
Just believe ...
Seeing is believing ...
Believing is seeing ...

Just what do I believe? One of the biggest fuels in the world is belief in what may be.

Columbus believed. He set sail, fueled by belief. I'm designing a virtual cafe, fueled by belief. Belief in an audience wanting this, on some level waiting for this, just waiting to be enchanted by this.

Everywhere I turn, belief. Obama, the man most recently elected to the presidency of the United States campaigned on a declared belief: Yes, we can.

All around us, beliefs. Beliefs not only about what we can achieve - universal health care, world peace, and so on - but beliefs of what that might mean. We carry a vision of that future within us.

All those beliefs don't make it into reality. There are character famous for dreaming. Walter Mitty comes to mind. Most famous of all is probably Don Quixote. If the people want to make the dreams come true, it's said: They have their head in the clouds. Or, they build air castles. If they don't try, we say stuff like, they're full of hot air.

Belief also fuels so many tragedies. Shattered belief - that in shattering, shatters the person, letting the energy drain away, like blood from a cut artery. Most, people with creative dreams come to mind - people pouring heart and soul into images and words, in the dream hope belief that these will matter to others.

I don't believe, "Just believe, and you'll get there." Or even, "You can be anything you want."

I do believe that, if you keep looking and trying, you're more likely to get there - and that keeping on believing in the possibility of making it can be a powerful fuel for going on.

I also know the well of belief can go dry with no other fuel, with not enough other fuel.

****

I started into this exploration of the importance of imagination with an intense awareness of a web of belief all around me - belief we can, belief we can't - millions of beliefs about what is not yet real but we believe can be.

The dream of the promised land.
The dream of a new world.
The dream of finding one's true self.
The dream of finding one's soul mate.

And now I come to the death of so many dreams - or maybe better to say, the changing of beliefs into faded wispy dreams, shadows, (at best) sleeping dogs.

****

I also come to the other side of the importance of imagination: we imagine others are our enemies, we imagine the evil of others. I am seeing Hotel Rwanda in my mind's eye, right now. The roads full of slaughtered bodies - people seen as cockroaches by other people. Over and over, people have seen others as evil enemies. Over and over, millions have died - because millions have imagined evil where it wasn't.

****

What's the importance of imagination? I cannot think of any single fuel more important. Love. Fear. Hatred. Passionate interest. Empathy. Those are others that come to mind. At the very least, imagination has the same kind of power.

Is there a way to improve imagination? Well, the more it's rooted in reality, does refer back to reality, the better. Millions and millions would not have been slaughtered if people had been willing - mentally able - to check out the reality of the people they deemed enemies.

More, recognizing the awesome importance of imagination is another way to improve imagination. It's not just make believe, play pretend. Instead, it is often far from reality and yet millions are convinced they are seeing what is there. As Mark Twain put it: You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

So much more to say, but ...

It's time for your experiences on the power of dreams, the importance of imagination - and the equally strong power of the ebbing of dreams, and the absence of imagined worlds we believe in.

signed,

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